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On any given day each year, from November-early April, we’re harvesting a vegetables on my farm. The vast majority of the acres are romaine and crisp head(iceberg) lettuce. Here’s an example of wrap head lettuce harvest:
Rain or shine, windy or calm, we’re all out here growing and harvesting these crops each day to ensure food is affordable and available across the 
and 
. Here are two other field of crisp head lettuce being harvested:
and . Here are two other field of crisp head lettuce being harvested:
When the lettuce cartons are palletized, trucks transfer pallets full of lettuce to trailers which will make the 15 minute ride to the cooler. At the cooler lettuce is cooled to 35*F(1-2*C) & shipped to market within 24 hours. About 1,000 fully loaded trucks a day leave #YumaAZ.
Thankfully the rain and light hail we had today didn’t damage our lettuce. Lettuce being harvested for processing is frequently cut and packaged differently...
This is one of my younger romaine and head lettuce fields. It will harvest in about 3-4 weeks. You’ll notice the variety trail in the romaine portion of the field. We plant a lot of different varieties throughout the season, and are always on the lookout for new, good varieties.
1/2 Within the same field, if it is larger than 10acres, we will typically have two or three varieties. Not every variety performs the same way each year, or under different weather conditions, so this provides us the best opportunity to get the most out of harvesting each field.
2/2 Our goal is to have product ready, when our customers asked us to have it ready, each and every day throughout the season. If we only planted one or two varieties, we would certainly struggle to get that done each year.
When we plant lettuce it is all direct seeded, for the most part. In order to ensure good growing conditions for the seed/seedlings, we do a lot of preparation. We prepare the soil by disking and chiseling to improve drainage. Here is one of my son’s disking a cotton field.
Here is my daughter learning to chisel...
And in action...
Then we disk the soil again before using a large scraper to level the soil. All of our fields in yuma are dead level(zero grade) or nearly dead level. After leveling, we flood irrigate with 3-3.5” of water to condition the soil and leach salt downward.
3-5 weeks later, depending on soil type and weather, we add phosphate to the soil. Our soils are poor in phosphate, and other elements in the soil and irrigation water perpetually tie-up phosphate. Here is @fertizona spreading some dry orilles 11-52-0 from @yara.
After adding dry fertilizer we disk the soil 1-6 times, depending on the previous crop and soil type, to provide good soil consistency and filth. Then it’s time to list or pull up beds. What do you call this operation in your part of the world?
Then we preshape the beds...
Here are our two new @Case_IH Maxxum 150’s after we rigged them all up with tanks.
We use those two tractors for planting most of our fields. You need your most reliable tractors on your planter, because no one wants to have problems on that day. Here they are in action...I point out the seeds on top of the seed bed.
Then the hardest working guys on the farm show up and do their best work. Our sprinkler crews lay our aluminum, hand movable, drag link Rain4Rent sprinkler pipe.
This is this is one of our newer sprinkler pumps. It’s a @Case_IH 240HP unit that has a @CornellPump on it. This is one of our larger pumps. It can sprinkle up to 75 acres(30 hectares). They are all diesel powered, for flexibility, and they all have medium pressure pumps on them.
#NoFoodGrowsUntilWaterFlows, so here we go...this is 4 days after starting the sprinklers, in a September planting. It can take 10+ days to get to this stage of plant growth(cotyledon) in December/January plantings.
After successfully germinating the #lettuce seedlings, we give them a couple of weeks to establish, then water for thinning:
Then we thin with a crew who use their skilled eyes and arms, with hoes:
We have been chronically short of workers in agriculture in the For over 30 years. Because of that, we are forced to mechanizing this operation. Many farmers have already switched over to this:
For over 30 years. Because of that, we are forced to mechanizing this operation. Many farmers have already switched over to this:
Automated thinning in action...
After thinning we typically let the crop and the field dry down for 1 to 2 weeks. Then it’s time for cultivation:
I showed weeding earlier in a side conversation of this thread, but any weeds that make it past the cultivator have to be removed by a crew with hoes in their hands. Then we spike, sidedress and prepare the furrows for quick irrigations.
This is what I mean by preparing the furrows for quick irrigation’s. This is the 3rd irrigation after sidedressing, & the furrows still move the water very quickly from one end of the field to the other. We have found that using the least amount of water is best for the crop.
If nature agrees with our plans & efforts, we will be able to harvest the field on time, as scheduled. We are able to accomplish this about 98% of the time, week after week, year after year. So if you have a salad today, I thank you. Just remember #TheresNoSuchThingAsFastFood
